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iPhone 6s/7 imessage showing phone numbers instead of Contact names

Iphone users including iPhone 5s/6s/7 plus
iPhone 8 plus users running on latest iOS 11 are facing issue that imessage
on iphone is showing the contact name when someone texted them. Now it is
showing only the phone number. Even the normal text messages are all
displayed by contact phone number instead of contact names in iPhone.

After updating to IOS11, while contact's phone
numbers has a name in the list but in iMessage and message are showing phone
numbers instead of Contact names. Also iPhone is showing the contact name for
all the text send to the user.

It will not display the saved name in messages
or when the contact actually calls her phone. This issue it appears to be a bug
that pops up from time to time

There are many fix listed below to fix the issue
and show contact names in iMessage:

Fix 1: Language & Region setting

1) Head to Settings -> General -> Language
& Region

2) Tap Region and select a region close to you,
I am in the US so I chose the US Virgin Islands

3) Confirm you want to change the region

4) check your Messages app, your contacts now
probably look normal

5) Go back to Language & Region

6) Change Region back to what it is supposed to
be (For me it was 'United States')

Try now, this should fix the issue.

Fix 2: toggle Short
Name

Go to Settings > Contacts > Short
Name and then turned the Short Name in this menu off, check your messages and
it should fix the issue, now you can turn short name ON again.

Fix 3: MMS setting

Tap the home button twice to bring up the app
multitasking screen. Swipe to find the Messages app and then swipe up on the
preview window to close the app.

Go to Settings>Messages>MMS Messaging.
Turn it off and then turn it on again.

Restart your phone and then see if
you can see contact names in iMessage.

Fix 4: Edit your contact

Try making a trivial edit to one of your
contacts. Then restart the device.

Or

Try editing one contact and added the +1 prefix (country
code) to your mobile number and saving it. It should fixthat contact’s name fixed;
it is possible that it also somehow fixed all her contacts!

Check again in messages if the issue is fixed.

Fix 5: Default account

Form many users the issue is resolved by
changing default contacts from Exchange to iCloud and then switching it
back.

Comments

Anonymous said…

I had the same issue. I installed my contacts thru Exchange. iMessages recently would state a number and no name. So, I turned of "contacts" on my Exchange account. Restarted phone, turned Exchange contacts back on, and the numbers were replaced by the correct names. This is for iPhone 6...iOS 11.3...hope this helps somebody out there. It's annoying to say the least. It's weird cuz it would show their names in the banner, but when you open Messages, it would only display their number and no name...